Bombshells (35 page)

I whimper, “Daddy.”

“Are you okay?”

I swallow and open my mouth to scream
no
, but he starts talking again. “Listen, I’ve got to run, but tell Mama I have to work late, okay? I should be home by seven.”

He pauses a second and says something to someone in his office. “Okay, bye.” And he hangs up.

How could he not know how much I need him? How did he miss it?

Kevin stares at me, waiting for the phone call to end. I know he’s standing there to make certain I don’t tell Daddy what happened. But Kevin doesn’t know Daddy hung up. Kevin doesn’t know that Daddy’s working late. I can make Kevin leave now.

I look away from him so he can’t read my face. “You’re on your way home now, Daddy? You’ll be here in a few minutes? Great. Bye.”

My whole body shakes as I hang up the phone. Swallowing hard, I turn to face Kevin, my blouse still clutched closed in my trembling fingers.

He looks shaken. His eyes are wide with fear. He rubs his hand across his forehead as if he can erase what he’s done. He turns and runs out of the house.

I stand in the dimly lit kitchen. Kneeling to scoop up the tiny white buttons from the floor, I wonder where Mama is. Why isn’t she home yet?

Words swirl in my head like trash caught in a tornado. Kevin saying
, “Your folks know the score.”
Daddy saying,
“She’s lucky I didn’t give her what she wanted.
” My lie to Steph.
“Kevin kissed me.”
Maybe somehow I started this.

I remember every nasty joke I’ve ever heard. Every wicked comment about sex and trashy women floods through me, making me feel dirty and damaged. Then I hear my mother screaming at me,
“Melanie, I’m so disappointed in you. How could do such a thing?”

In the bathroom I look at myself in the mirror.

My stomach pitches and bile crowds my throat. I vomit until I have dry heaves.

I need help. I have to talk to somebody. There has to be someone.

I can never talk to Steph about this. Never. I want to blame the whole thing on her big mouth. I want this to be all her fault, but inside, I know that isn’t fair. I told the first lie.

I wash my face and brush my teeth. I scrub my face dry with the towel.

How long before Mama gets home? How can I tell her? She’ll think I’m terrible. And I am.

I am like Aunt Lola.

I need to talk to someone. And then, as though a chime rings in my head, I know.

Flossie.

I toss the towel onto the floor. I need to talk to Flossie.

I march down the hall to my parents’ room. I scoop all the change from Daddy’s dresser. I glance at the alarm clock. If I run, there is still time to catch the five o’clock bus.

I shove the change into my pocket along with the buttons and dash into my room, tearing the destroyed shirt from my shoulders. I stuff it under my bed, way back against the wall, where I’ll never have to see it again. I grab a sweatshirt from the bottom dresser drawer and pull the warm softness over my tender skin.

Slamming the front door behind me, I run down the street, stretching my stride and pumping my arms, running harder than I ever have in my life. After four blocks, I arrive at the city bus stop, breathless and sobbing, skidding to a halt just as the driver pulls up.

Flossie will be able to help me. I just have to find her.

MELANIE

The city bus stops at the curb, its engine belching diesel exhaust. When the driver opens the door, the inside of the bus lights up like a stage full of silent actors, their lines recited for the day, as they wait for the curtain of night to fall.

As I march down the narrow aisle, I feel like I’ve entered another country. These people don’t live in my world. They travel into it and through it. They earn their living in my neighborhood, but they live somewhere else.

As I pass each row, heads turn and gazes follow me. I lower my head and drop into a seat, trying to hide my swollen eyes and red nose. The driver closes the door with a hiss, and the lights dim. With a mechanical sigh, the brakes release and the engine roars as we merge into traffic.

Streetlights and headlights strobe through the bus, slicing time into light and dark, like the thoughts that keep cutting into my mind.

In the dark, I remember Daddy and Lola, dancing, touching, kissing.

In the light, I remember Mama and Daddy, laughing, holding each other, loving one another.

In the dark, Mrs. Winston and Robert, her hunger, his shame.

In the light, Robert kissing me, the quivering in my soul, the weightless feeling that lifted me above the earth.

Soon, the driver turns off Northern Boulevard onto Ridgewood Avenue. Not so much traffic, more sparsely spaced streetlights. More darkness. Longer darkness.

In the dark, Kevin.

In the dark, his bruising fingers.

In the dark, his pushing, probing tongue.

In the dark, Kevin’s words. Robert does this to Brooke. You like this, don’t you?

In the light, that was the darkest hurt, the deepest wound, the thing that drains the soul out of me.

In the light, those words kindle a fiery anger. I did not like it. I did not want it. I did not ask for it.

Tears burn my eyes. A hot lump scorches my throat. I clench my fists and pound my legs in silent fury.

I think about what Robert had said when he’d tried to explain about Mrs. Winston.
She’s too hungry. I’m afraid she won’t leave anything for me.

It’s like everything in my body stops.

I don’t think I’ve ever really known a truth, not until this very moment on the bus, as I remember his words. Believing something is true is different from knowing it all the way through you.

Believing is in your head, somehow confined and contained in your brain. But understanding a truth must touch your heart, your soul. Understanding wedges into you and becomes a part of you, so that you can’t forget.

The bus works through the maze of short blocks that make up downtown. Adams and State Street. Eighth and Main. Duval and Monroe. At each corner we stop, and the cast of passengers follow the driver’s cue. Doors open, lights flick on, people rise, people walk, people sit. Lights off. Travel to the next block.

I read each street sign through watery eyes, and listen for the name of Flossie’s stop. Finally, the driver pulls up to the curb and announces Pearl and Union.

That’s what I’ve been waiting for. I grip the handrail and dangle one foot over the step, hesitant. In the street light’s yellow glow, the corner looks dingy and crowded. Three different groups of colored men stand outside the store that occupies the triangular building on the corner. Their cigarette tips glow red.

“You sure you want to get off here, Miss?” the driver asks in a soft, rolling voice. His hands look like wrinkled white paper wrapped around the steering wheel. “I don’t have many young white girls traveling to this corner.” He nods his head toward the shuffling crowd in front of the store.

A rush of fear sweeps through me. What have I done? I’ve never been to this part of town, unless I was riding in the car. Maybe I should just turn around and go back to my seat. I’ll be safe there.

The thought that safety is just a lie explodes in my mind. I hadn’t been safe from Kevin an hour ago in my own house. I have to look out for myself. I push the fear down.

Looking over my shoulder, I say, “I’ll be okay. I’m going to someone’s house.”

“Yeah?” The driver lifts both eyebrows and makes his eyes big and round. “Who would that be?”

“Flossie…” My voice fades as I realize I don’t even know Flossie’s last name.

“Flossie? Johnson?”

I duck my head. “I’m not sure.”

“How do you know this Flossie?”

“She cleans for us.”

“Must be Flossie Johnson. She catches this bus from your neighborhood.”

“Yes, sir. On Mondays and Thursdays.”

From the back of the bus, a man shouts “Let’s get going. Let her get off the damn bus if she wants.”

“Hold your horses back there.” The driver nods at me. “One block down Pearl is where Miz Johnson lives. Be careful, and you call your folks when you get there.”

“Thank you.” I step off the bus and wait for it to pull itself together with moans and grinding hisses before it leaves the curb.

The street corner quiets. The men smoke and stop shuffling their feet. I feel like their stares are blistering my back. I quickly cross the street.

Still no sound, no footsteps behind me. I wiggle my shoulders, trying to shake off the strange feeling. Soon, I hear voices, followed by laughter. I turn and see the men still standing outside the store. No one is paying any attention to me as I continue down the sidewalk.

My hands shake so badly, I stick them in my pockets.

I find a house with Johnson painted in white letters on the faded black mailbox. I stand on the sidewalk for a long time, staring at the narrow wooden building. A single lamp shines in the front window, but no sound comes from the house at all. A pot of red geraniums bloom next to the porch steps and one rocking chair, brown and battered wicker, waits by the door. I sit on the lowest step.

It’s full dark now. Waiting, I watch the traffic zip up and down Union Street. Not many cars stop. They’re all passing through, going someplace else, just like I’ve always done.

Until tonight.

Sounds drift through the doors and windows of the houses around me. Voices, clanging pots and pans, radio music, TV news. The houses sit close together, long wooden shotgun houses with narrow alleyways between them. Some of the people keep a little patch of green grass in front of their house, like Flossie does, but most just live with weeds cluttering the dirt.

I pluck a long stem of grass and twirl it between my fingers. I’m not quite sure what I’ll say to Flossie, but the thought of telling Mama and Daddy makes me sick. I want them to believe me when I tell them I didn’t ask for it, but I can’t help thinking of what Daddy said about Aunt Lola. About how a man can only stand so much.

Everything is horribly confusing. Will Mama blame me, too? Will she say I should have gone shopping with her? Suddenly, I remember what Mama had said when Birdie went to the hospital.

It isn’t proper for you to be alone in the house with Robert.

Now, I understand why I shouldn’t be alone in the house with a boy. But Robert wouldn’t have done what Kevin did.

Would he?

Robert and Brooke did this.

Besides Brooke being older, what was the difference between us? I knew there must be a difference somewhere, somehow. Just a few months ago, everything had been so clear. I knew what was expected of me. I knew what to expect of everyone else.

I never thought I would live with such fear. I never thought the sound of a jet could make my belly burn or Daddy could make my heart ache. I never thought Mama would turn her back on me.

And never, ever would I have expected that someone would touch me in a way that would make every molecule of my body crawl.

I want things to be like they were before my birthday.

Suddenly the porch light comes on. I stand and hold my breath.

Maybe she didn’t want me to come to her house. What if she sends me home because she’s angry? Twisting my hands in the hem of my sweatshirt, I fret about what to do.

“Who’s out there?” Flossie says. I can see her looking out the front window.

I clear my throat and croak, “Flossie, it’s me, Mellie.”

She opens the door. “Child, what are you doing here?” She sounds more concerned than angry, and I take a tentative step toward her.

The tears break and roll down my face. Flossie doesn’t say anything else. She motions for me to come inside.

Nervously, I glance around. Her living room looks like a faded golden photograph or a page in an old magazine, neat and clean with doilies on the chair backs and books on the coffee table. Odd that the room looks like a snapshot, but there are no photographs or paintings on the walls.

A frown knits Flossie’s brows. The lines around her mouth appear deeper, sadder. “What are you doin’ here?”

I shuffle my feet. “I had to talk to you.”

She puffs out a breath. “Do your Mama and Daddy know you’re here?”

“No, ma’am.”

“You catch the bus?”

Studying the pattern in the wood floor, I mumble, “Yes, ma’am.”

“Child, this must be serious.” She rubs her hands together and I notice how swollen and chapped her knuckles are. She sighs. “I hope it don’t cause no problems. You shouldn’t have done that, riding the bus by yourself.”

“I had to.”

“Well, sit down on that couch and tell me what in the world is going on.” Flossie doesn’t actually sound angry, but she doesn’t sound happy, either.

I begin to think I must have done something really awful—something besides kiss Kevin—without even knowing. She sits next to me and puts her sore foot on the table.